


Oh Mother Dear We're Not the Fortunate Ones

by Ellerigby13



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Heavy Angst, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sister-Sister Relationship, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 03:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18512551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellerigby13/pseuds/Ellerigby13
Summary: Lying there with the life spilling out of her from the gaping slash in her neck, Allison has a lot of time to think.





	Oh Mother Dear We're Not the Fortunate Ones

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat graphic violence to follow. Moderate-to-heavy angst. Caveat emptor, you know?  
> Title from Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" but the mood of the Heather Janssen version fits a lot better, if you're inclined to listen.

Even as the bow slices the air in front of her, Allison can’t take her eyes off the woman she’s always known as her little sister.

Vanya’s face is full of anger and vulnerability at once, rage in the furrow of her brows but fear in the soft creases beneath her eyes.

And as Allison begins to register the sharp sting of the wound, the thick, hot ribbons of blood rolling out of her, she’s faced only with the fear washing over her Vanya.

_ “Abhorrent.” _

_ Reginald glowers down at her over Number Five’s shoulder, her back sore and bruising by the second.  The Boy gets off, finally, and Allison can feel her face burning with shame. Father will tell her, as he does every chance he gets, that she is weak.  That, to defeat one’s cruelest enemies, one must have the gumption to defeat one’s closest allies. _

_ “Again,” Reginald says, and again Five looks at her with eyes that, under their coldness, want to offer apologetics, but will not.  She parries his first few jabs, ducking under his elbow to offer a jab of her own at his side, and aims a kick at the sensitive point at the back of his knee.  Five dodges and catches her off-balance, fingers sliding around her ankle and jerking her back downwards. Allison lets out a surprised wail, regretting it immediately, before she feels the slam of the ground beneath her. _

_ “Weak.” _

_ Allison swallows her tears.  Five extends a hand to help her up, but she rises on her own, half-wishing her father would shout at her.  Shout so loud it would shake the glass of the chandelier above them. _

_ But he doesn’t. _

_ He keeps at it in a soft, monotonous drone.  Only when Allison’s shame fades into anger, fades into a dull weariness, does she notice her only sister standing behind him.  She meets Vanya’s eyes - eyes that, genetically, are nothing like her own. _

_ But there is something to be said for the way that they share her pain.  Her shame. Her weariness. _

_ They are sisters in their suffering, no more and no less. _

“Allison,” Vanya gasps, the anger draining from her face, and stumbles forward to catch Allison in her arms when she too begins to buckle.  The air and blood rushing in her ears, Allison falters. “No, no! Allison - ”

She swallows.  The blood rolls down her front, too fast.  Before Allison can process what’s going on, Vanya’s hands are scrabbling at her chest, and her back is hitting the floor.

She’ll die here.

It’s almost funny, she thinks.  That this is where she’ll die. A week ago, she’d been lying in her miserable condo, nursing a glass that was more gin than tonic, wishing she could hold her daughter in her arms instead of attending that  _ asinine _ premiere…

A week ago, she’d been Allison Hargreeves, star of the screen.  Divorcee. Absentee mother.

And now, she’s Allison Hargreeves, former superhero, bleeding out on the floor of her estranged sister’s murderous boyfriend’s cabin, because said estranged sister has just discovered that she has  _ massive  _ powers, and that Allison had a hand in keeping those powers a terrible, ugly secret from her.

“Allison,” Vanya is saying, her thumbs pressing fruitlessly into the wound.  She’s starting to blur around the edges, but there’s no mistaking the new emotion in her eyes as she watches the life start to seep out of her sister.  “Allison - ” 

She remembers, now.  Remembers the only time Reginald looked down at her with something resembling pride, or rather, anything  _ not _ resembling disdain.

_ “I heard a rumor you think you’re just ordinary.” _

Leonard - Harold - bursts through the door, but the words he exchanges with Vanya are as blurry as the room around Allison, and suddenly the warmth of her sister’s hands leaves her.

With Vanya gone, the world begins to grow dark and cold.

_ “I heard a rumor you think you’re just ordinary.” _

_ A little girl, gaunt and pale and a quiet sort of terrified, peers back at her, and suddenly her eyes glaze over.  After a long time, Allison can’t be sure how long, Vanya leaves the vault with them, walking too slowly and too straight in a line behind her, her mother and father, and Pogo. _

_ “You’ve done well today, Number Three,” Reginald says, sparing her one downward glance.  A smile does not tug at the corners of his lips. No light filling the small, dark eyes from behind his glasses.  Nothing, really, that tells her that  _ she _ in fact has done well - but a satisfaction in his own cleverness, his own plan. _

_ Mother closes a gentle hand over Allison’s shoulder, and it is Pogo who offers her a gentle smile of encouragement, his step falling in rhythm with the echoing clatter of his cane on the stone floor.  Allison turns back to find her sister trailing behind her, her face empty and blank. Allison thinks of reaching for the hand dangling at Vanya’s side. _

_ She doesn’t. _

The engine outside roars to life, and the last thing Allison sees before she closes her eyes is the regret painted across Vanya’s face as Harold whisks her out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <3


End file.
